<< The point of Christine's post is that Brad & Justin as well are
Stalinists in American political discourse. And my point is that it
is not the Right alone that is responsible for this type of political
culture; liberals & leftists (loosely defined) engage in the same
habit of using the word Stalinist as a form of epithet. Americans
can never get over the culture of Cold War, it seems. Don't complain
the next time someone red-baits _you_! >>
Oh, grow up. I can't speak for Brad, but you cannot intelligibly use the term "Stalinist" to describe someone like me who is a militant loony raving ACLU civil libertarian.
Nor am I using "Stalinist" as a mere epithet. I use to describe, centrally, the political order of formerly existing socialism. with single party Communist dictatorships and bureaucratic central planning; secondarily, I use to to describe someone is either an active and ideological defender of such regimes as an idael to be arelized, like Charles, or an active member of a party that advocates such a system. Now, I regard such systems as utterly odious, hence the epithet part. But the idea has content; it is not like yelling "fascist" whenever the government does something you don't like.
It is not constructive to respond to sharp criticism with ad hominems. Let me put it to you:
Do you think one party states are better than multiparty systems? Do you support political repression, including censorship, imprisonment, exile, and execution, of political dissidents and their families? Do you think that top-down bureaucratic planning in the hands of a party elite responsive to no one is a real advance over a regulated market?
I think the Stalinist half of these alternatives is vile. The half-baked liberal capitalist democracy we have in the advanced capitalist countries is bad enough to warrant radical change, but if we are talking about ideals to aspire to in terms of change, I do not see how anyone sane could say that what they had in Russia or have in N. Korea is better, or that we should here risk our lives to bring it about here.
As to whether I can't "get over" the culture of the Cold War, what does this mean? If you mean that I am stuck defending Truman, McCarthy, loyalty oaths, firing people like me, etc., all in the name of saving the free world from totalitarian communism, you know better than that Yoshie. You know the facts of my case better than that too. Do I have to remind you, too, that _I_ seem to be the one main active participant in these discussions who has actually experienced the business end of anti-communism, not as a debating point, but as a pink slip? None of you have any right to talk to me about red-baiting. Or do you mean that I should recognize that state socialist single party dictatorships were really just as good, if not better, ways of organizing societies as liberal democracy? If that is what getting over the Cold War means, I don't want to get over the Cold War.
--jks